[Lim Bumsuk Column] The most critical component of the future cars..Imagination

Future, future, future... when in the world is it coming?

I grew up in an era when everything was about the future.

When I was very little, I vaguely remember watching animation on TV (back in the days of black and white) called “Astro Boy”- Japanese animation about humanoid robot boy in the future.

At the time, I had no idea that it was originally a Japanese animation thus the city was probably the Tokyo however I just knew that in the future Seoul would be like the city in the animation. The future was fantastic even to little boy's eyes.

Another thing caught my attention was the cars and roads of the future - of course there were flying - more like hovering cars and they were all travelling at equal distance from each other in a format (that means they were all equipped with distance detecting radar?), making nothing but little humming noise (most likely electric cars?).

That was the first future I saw. Then there was another future I remember?(remembering the future? sounds strange right?)

It was the movie "Back to the future".

Gulling door DeLorean time machine car that travelled to October 15th 2015 - that was the future day!

That day was in last year already. So future is now in the past.

In the second sequel of Back to the future, setting was in 2015 and there were lots of future cars featured in the movie. Most of those future cars in the Back to the future 2 were actually General Motors's concept models.

GM was - may be not so much in thesedays, unfortunately - the king of future cars. They built future concept models from early days, as early as late 1930’s but their golden era was from 1950’s to 1990’s.

Year after year, GM wooed the world showing 'Astro Boy' like future models. Often times those future cars looked like they were about to take off and fly away.

1950's cars had F-86 (America's first combat jet fighter) like all glass canopy and rocket boosters ?Were cars going to really shoot off to sky?

Well, well, well that's not the point. The point is that those future concept cars showed the dream ?dream of the future. The future will be an exciting, cool, and a happy world.

We know that things may not turn out to be exactly the way people predict the future but it's ok.

It doesn't have to be. Reality doesn't have to be same the dream.

Reason we dream is that dream makes people to have hopes. Dreams and hopes are the main drive to innovations.

When people dream, people work hard to make the dream come true. Along the day, we discover unknown things, things that make people's lives better.

Now let's go back to GM concept car story. Through out several decades, many of GM's concept car designers had an interesting common fact.

Many of them once certain design competition winners.

It was the "Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild Model car Competition". It was a scale model car competition for young boys (from 13,14 to 20) in America from 1930s to 1960s.

Fisher Body was a family-operated horse carriage making shop in Ohio later it was bought by GM and built car bodies for many brands.

To promote the company and recruit the future talents, Fisher Body Company organized the Fisher Body Craftsman뭩 Guild Competition.

In the beginning, competition was rather simple. Every contestant builds a Napoleonic Carriage - the signature logo of the company - to compete in quality and craftsmanship. The best quality wins.

But soon standardized carriage model was replaced by the original model concept car models - it became design competition.

The Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild became a major recruiting tool for young talent. National winners of the competition were awarded scholarships to design school and were frequently offered employment in the General Motors styling division.

Over half of the General Motors design staff by the late 1960s had been members of the Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild as teenagers including Mr. Chuck Jordan who became VP of design in 1990's.

Now let's come back to Korea. This year, there is Auto Design Award 2016 under the theme of 'Autonomous Car, the Future in Design'

I am very excited about the event and I believe this will become the 'Fisher Body Design Competition' of Korea where young talents are creating the future designs.

Korea is already a car design powerhouse of the world. Many of Korean designers are creating the future cars around the world.

Now the whole world is waiting for Korean car design to show them what the future looks like. So, what is the most important component of the future cars?

It is your imagination! Without imagination there is no future.

Dream big, dream wild and let's create the future cars together!